Turkey will not necessarily “meet” Sweden’s “expectations” of membership

Ankara still does not open the doors to Stockholm. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Wednesday June 14 that Turkey will not “will satisfy” not necessarily the “expectations” of Sweden, a candidate for NATO membership, at the next Atlantic Alliance summit in Vilnius (Lithuania) on 11 and 12 July. “Sweden has expectations, but that doesn’t mean we will meet them,” declared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been blocking entry into Sweden for thirteen months, criticizing him in particular for his leniency towards the Kurdish militants who have taken refuge on his soil.

“In order for us to live up to these expectations, Sweden first needs to do its part,” added the Head of State. A tripartite meeting between Turkey, Sweden and Finland took place in parallel on Wednesday, in Ankara, in order to discuss the Stockholm membership project. “Progress has been made”affirmed in the stride the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, for whom “it remains possible to reach an agreement by the summit” from Vilnius.

In early June in Istanbul, Jens Stoltenberg called on Turkey to ratify Sweden’s membership “as soon as possible”considering that she had “fulfilled its obligations”. Simultaneously, an anti-Erdogan demonstration and against this membership took place in Stockholm, including in particular the Rojava committee, which supports the Kurdish armed groups in Syria, enemies of Ankara. Turkey, which gave the green light at the end of March to Finland’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance, is, along with Hungary, the only one of the 31 NATO member states to have not yet ratified membership. Swedish.